Mayur FF - Yet Another Fairy Tale- 31/8- chap 2 - Page 3

ONE

The storm raged dark outside, the light in the hallway flickered, and Mayank Sharma cast a broad shadow over the mailboxes, but it didn't matter. He knew by heart what the card on the box above his said: Nupur Bhushan Apartment 1B

Stories Told, Ideas Elaborated Unreal but Not Untrue

Downstairs, Nupur Bhushan frowned too, and cocked her head to try to catch again the sound she'd heard. It had been something between a creaking door and a cat in trouble. She looked over at Liz to see if she was showing signs of life, but Liz was, as usual, a black velvet blob stretched out on the end table Nupur had rescued from a trash heap two streets over. The cat basked in the warmth from the cracked crystal lamp Nupur had found at Chor Bazaar. The three made a lovely picture, light and texture and color, silky fur and smooth wood and warm lamp glow. Unbelievably, fools had thrown away all three; sometimes the blindness of people just amazed Nupur.

D-"Hello?" The petite girl across the chipped wooden table from Nupur waved her hand. "You there? You have the gooniest look on your face."

N-"I thought I heard something," Nupur told her best friend. "Never mind. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I'm broke." She shrugged at Dia across from her. "Nothing new."

D-"Well, you're depressed about it. That's new." Dia took a cookie from the plate in front of her and shoved the rest toward Nupur with one manicured hand, narrowly missing Nupur's stained glass lamp. The lamp was another find: blue, green, and yellow Tiffany pieces with a crack in one that had made it just possible for her to buy it. The crack had been the clincher for Nupur: with the crack, the lamp had a history, a story; it was real. Sort of like her hands, she tried to tell herself as she compared them to Dia's. Blunt, paint-stained, no two nails the same length. Interesting. Real. Dia, as usual, had missed color and pattern completely and was still on words. D-"Also, you're the one who has to come up with the bucks for the lazy cat's chow. I should eat so good."

N-"Right." She scrunched up her face. She hated thinking about money, which was probably why she hadn't had much for the past two years. "Maybe leaving teaching wasn't such a good idea." Dia straightened so fast, Liz opened an eye again.

D-"Are you kidding? This is new. I can't believe you're doubting yourself." She leaned across the table to stare into Nupur's eyes. "Get a grip. Make some chai to go with these cookies. Tell me a story. Do something weird and unpractical so I'll know you're Nupur Bhushan."

N-"Very funny." Nupur pushed her chair back and went to find chai and her beat-up vessel she kept specially for chai…she had this notion that it tasted better when she made it in that. She was sure the tea was in one of the canisters on the shelf, but the vessel could be anywhere. She opened the bottom cupboard and started pawing through the pans, books, and paintbrushes that had somehow taken up housekeeping together.

D-"I'm not kidding." Dia followed her to the sink. "I've known you for twelve years, and this is the first time I've heard you say you can't do something." Nupur was so outraged at the thought that she pulled her head out of the cupboard without giving herself enough clearance and smacked herself hard.

N-"Ouch." She rubbed her head through her hair. "I'm not saying I can't make it as an artist." Nupur stuck her head back into the cabinet and shoved aside her cookie sheets long enough to find her vessel and yank it out. "I believe in myself. I just may have moved too fast." She got up and filled it from the faucet.

D-"Well, it's not like you ever move slow." Dia took down canisters one by one, finally finding the chai in a brown and silver square can. "Why did you put the chai in the can that says 'coffee'? Never mind. Do you mind adrak in the chai?" Dia inquired reaching into the fridge, while Nupur put the Vessel on the stove and turned up the heat.

N-"This is a serious moment, and I need a serious chai."

D-"Which is why I'm suggesting the adrak chai. Even though I have no serious moments."

N-"Well, pretend you're having one for me." Nupur sighed, envying Dia's optimism. Of course, Dia hadn't quit a safe and solid teaching job to become a painter, or spent the past four years living on her savings until she didn't have any. Nupur felt her head pound. "Dee, I don't think I can do this anymore. I'm tired of scraping to pay my bills, and I'm tired of trying to sell my paintings to people who don't understand what I'm doing, and I'm tired—" She bit her lip. "I'm so tired of worrying about everything." That was the thing, really; she was worn down from the uncertainty. Like water on a rock; that was what the edge of poverty did to you.

D-"So what are you going to do?" Dia asked, but somewhere there was a faint sound, half screech and half meow, and Nupur cocked her head again instead of answering.

N-"I swear I hear a cat crying," she told Dia. "Listen. Do you hear anything?" Dia paused and then shook her head.

D- "Uh-uh. Nope nothing." Nupur took the chai off the gas while Dia took down two mismatched cups and saucers. Dia picked up her cup and carried it back to the table. "Forget the noise. You're in crisis here. You're out of money and you can't sell your paintings. How's the storytelling going?"

N-"Budget cuts." Nupur sat down across from her with her own cup and saucer. "Most libraries can't afford me, and it's a slow time for bookstores, and forget schools entirely. They all say I'm very popular and they'll use me again as soon as possible, but in the meantime I'm out of luck."

D-"Okay." Dia crinkled her nose as she thought. "How else were you making money? Oh, the jewelry. What about the jewelry?" Nupur winced with guilt.

N-"That's selling, but Swapnil won't give me the money until the end of the month. And he owes me from the end of last month, but he's holding on to that too. It's not that much, about a 10,000, but it would help." She knew she should go in and demand her jewelry money, but the thought of Swapnil sneering at her wasn't appealing. He looked so much like her father that it was like every summer she'd ever spent with him condensed into two minutes. Dia frowned at her.

D-"So how much do you need? To keep the wolf from the door, I mean." Nupur sighed.

N-"About 40,000. Last month's rent, this month's rent, and expenses. That would get me through to when Swapnil pays and then maybe something else would turn up." That sounded pathetic, so she took a deep breath and started again. "The thing is, I quit so I could paint, but I'm spending all my time trying to support myself instead of concentrating on my work. I thought I'd have a show by now, but nobody understands what I'm doing. And even though I almost have enough paintings for a show, I'm not sure what I'm doing is right for who am I now anyway." Dia sipped her tea.

D-"Ouch. Hot. Blow on yours first. What do you mean, you're not sure what you're doing is right? I love your paintings. All those details."

N-"Well, that's it." Nupur shoved her tea away to lean closer. "I like the details too, but I've done them. I think I need to stretch, to try things that are harder for me, but I can't afford to. I'm building my reputation on narrative paintings; I can't suddenly become an abstract expressionist." Dia made a face.

D-"That's what you want to do?"

N-"No." she shut her eyes, trying to see the paintings she wanted to do, paintings with the emotions in the brushstrokes instead of in the tiny painted details, thick slashes of paint instead of small, rich dots. "I need to work larger. I need—" The mewling cry that had teased her earlier came again, louder. "That is definitely a cat," Nupur said, and went to open the window. The wind exploded in and stirred Nupur's apartment into even more chaos than usual. Liz rolled to her feet and meowed her annoyance, but Nupur ignored her and leaned out into the storm. Two bright eyes stared up at her from under the bush beneath her window. "You stay right there," she told them, and ran for the apartment door.

D-"Nupur?" Dia called after her, but she let the door bang behind her and ran out into the rain. Whatever it was had vanished, and Nupur got down on her hands and knees in the mud to peer under the bush. A kitten peered back, soaked and mangy and not at all happy to see her. Nupur reached for it and got clawed for her pains.

N-"I'm rescuing you, dummy," she told it when she'd hauled it out from under the bush and it was squirming against her. "Stop fighting me."

Once inside, she wrapped the soaked little body in a dish towel while Dia and Liz looked at it with equal distaste.

D-"It looks like a rat, I can't believe it. You rescued a rat."

Liz hissed, and when Nupur toweled the kitten dry, it hissed too.

N-"It's a calico kitten." Nupur got down on her knees so she could go eye to eye with the towel-wrapped little animal on the table. "You're okay now." The mottled kitten glared at her and screeched its meow with all the melody of a fingernail down a blackboard.

D-"Just what you needed. Another mouth to feed," Dia said, and the kitten screeched at her too. "And what a mouth it is." Dia shot a sympathetic look at Liz. "If you want to come live with me, I understand," she told the cat. "I know you're legally dead, but even you must draw the line at living with a rat." Liz glared at the kitten one more time and then curled up under the light and went back to sleep.

N-"A kitten doesn't eat much," she said, and went to get food. She found a can of tuna on the shelf over the stove, stuck behind her copy of Grimms' fairy tales, a jar of pickle, crimson acrylic paint, and her cinnamon. She took down the can and called back to Dia. "Want to eat something?"

D-"No. I just came over to bring you the cookies, and then I got distracted." Dia and the kitten looked at each other with equal distaste. "You know, this is not a happy rat."

N-"Stop it, Dee." She pulled out some bread and put some jam on it. She then put the sandwich onto a plate with violet flowers for herself. Nupur then removed the Tuna from the can and divided it between Liz's red cat dish and a yellow saucer. She gathered the dishes and went out. She dropped Liz's red bowl in front of her. Liz was so enthusiastic about the tuna, she sat up. Nupur put the yellow saucer in front of the kitten and stopped to admire the violets on her plate next to the complementary color of the yellow saucer. Color and contrast, she thought. Clash. That's what life is about.

D-"Nupsie, I know you're going to freak when I say this, but I can loan you 40,000. I want to loan you 40,000. Please."

Nupur froze and then turned to face her friend. Dia stood beside the table in the light from the stained glass lamp, looking fragile and cautious and sympathetic, and Nupur loved her for the offer as much as she was angry that the offer had been made.

N-"No. I can make it." Dia bit her lip.

D-"Then let me buy a painting. You know how I feel about the last painting you did. Let me—"

N-"Dia, you already own three of my paintings." Nupur turned back to the cat. "Enough charity already."

D-"It's not charity." Dia's voice was intense. "I bought those paintings because I loved them. And I—"

N-"No." Nupur picked up the plate with her sandwich on it. "Want some of the sandwich? I can cut this in half."

D-"No." she sighed. "No, I have papers to grade." She shoved her chair under the table and looked at Nupur regretfully. "If you ever need my help, you know it's there."

Once Dia had gone, Nupur got down on her knees next to the table so she could look the kitten in the eye. "Look, I know we just met," she told the cat. "But trust me on this, you have to eat. I know you've had a rough childhood, but so did I, and I eat. Besides, from now on you're a Bhushan cat. And Bhushans don't quit. Eat the tuna, and you can stay." Nupur picked up a tiny piece of tuna and held it under the kitten's nose. The kitten licked the tuna and then took it carefully in its mouth. "See?" she scratched gently behind the kitten's ears. "Poor baby. You're just an orphan of the storm. Little Orphan Annie. But now you're with me." Little Orphan Annie struggled farther out of the towel and began to eat, slowly at first and then ravenously. Nupur pushed her hair back behind her ears as she watched the kitten, and then she began to eat her sandwich. "You're going to have to lie low," she told the kitten. "I'm not allowed to have pets, so we'll have to hide you from the landlord. And from the guy upstairs too. Big sadu dark-haired guy in a suit. No sense of humor. Flares his nostrils a lot. You can't miss him. He kicked Liz once. He looks like he has cats like you for breakfast." The kitten finished the tuna and licked its chops, its orange and brown fur finally a little drier but still spiky. "Maybe you're an omen." Nupur stroked her fingers lightly down the kitten's back while it moved on to cleaning the plate. "Maybe this means things will be better. Maybe…" She began to tell herself the story again, the story of her new life, the one she'd been building for the past two years. She'd given up security to follow her dream, so of course she had to face years of adversity first—because without adversity and struggle no story was really a story. Now the next chapter would be her paintings finally selling, and maybe her storytelling career suddenly taking off too. And a prince would be good. Somebody big and warm to keep her company. It had been seven months since Rahul had dumped her—taking her boombox, the creep—and she was about ready to trust somebody with a Y chromosome again.

Not marry anyone, certainly; she'd already seen what that part of the fairy tale could do to women. Look at her mother. The thought of her mother depressed her, but Annie abandoned the empty plate and began to lick the dampness from her fur, and the scratchy sound brought Nupur back to earth. Forget the prince. Stories were all well and good, but princes weren't stories, they were impossible. Nupur had known that from the time she'd realized that her mother's promises that her father would be back were a bigger fairy tale than anything the Brothers Grimm had ever spun out. Nobody was ever there when you needed someone. You're born alone and you die alone, Nupur told herself. Remember that. Now think of something to get yourself out of this.

Upstairs, Mayank stretched out on his chrome and black leather couch, bathed in the cool light from his white enameled track lighting, his headache receding but his troubles intact. It didn't help that the mess he was in was his own fault. He'd lied. Mayank winced. He wasn't a liar; He hated liars. He couldn't ever remember lying before. But he also couldn't remember anything he'd ever wanted as much as he wanted to teach history at quiet, private Xaviers College. And he hadn't lied about anything important in his interview for the job: his credentials were all real and impressive, and his goals were honest and good. Mayank closed his eyes. Rationalization. None of that mattered. He'd lied. The memory of his interview came back in painful detail. Dr. Mathews, dean of humanities, and Dr. Bharucha, head of the history department, had interviewed him. Dr.Mathews looked like a retired soldier: big, beery, genial, with an overall air of stupidity. He wore a bow tie in what Mayank thought of as a feeble attempt at an academic look. Dr. Bharucha needed no such camouflage. He looked as if the moisture had slowly seeped out of him over the years, leaving only a dried-up little shell behind horn-rimmed glasses. Mayank's dreams of a department headship had begun when he saw that Bharucha was older than God. And things had gone well at first. They'd been impressed with his credentials, impressed with his first book, published four years before, impressed with his demeanor, and just impressed with him in general. He knew he was good; he'd sacrificed for years to make sure that he was good, that he'd published in the right places and presented at the right conferences, that his background was above reproach, that he always did and said the right thing. And now the only question was, would they think he was good enough? But that hadn't been the question. The question that Dr. Mathews, his fat lips pursing, had asked was "Are you married, Dr.Sharma?"

"No." And then he'd seen the look on Mathews's face: regret. Mayank hadn't made it as far as he had in a very competitive profession by being slow. "But I'm engaged," he'd finished. Then he'd had a stroke of what at the time had seemed like genius. "Xaviers would be the perfect place for us. We've been waiting to get married until I was established so we could raise our children the old-fashioned way." Mathews didn't just thaw, he blossomed. "Excellent, excellent. Old-fashioned values. You'll definitely be hearing from us again, Dr. Sharma." Dr. Bharucha had sniffed. And Mayank had wondered if he was losing his mind. It was bad enough that he'd created a fiance; he'd really sent himself to hell when he'd babbled about mythical children. And the weird part was, it seemed so true while he'd been saying it. Not the fiance part, but the idea of settling down with some elegant woman and starting a family in a small town. The pictures had been there in his head, sunny scenes of neat lawns and well-behaved children in well-ironed clothes. You're pathetic, Sharma, he'd told himself at the time. And you lied. God's going to make you pay for that. You'll probably get struck by lightning. But as it turned out, it wasn't lightning that slugged him from behind, but Mathews. He'd been invited to speak to the faculty on his research, the standard job talk audition for a college position. And, Mathews had written, make sure you bring your fiance. Right. Mayank punished himself with the thought of it and drank more beer. He deserved this. If Xaviers wouldn't take him on his own very considerable merits, he should have just let them go. There were other schools. And once he finished the book he was working on— But he couldn't finish the book. Not at the city university, where he was now, not while teaching three awful, mind-numbing classes. To finish the book he needed someplace like Xaviers. And to get Xaviers he needed a plan. Mayank shifted on the couch. He actually had two plans. One was to show up without a fiance and probably not get the job. That one had the benefit of honesty and not much else. The other was to convince somebody to pose as his fiance, and then if he got the job, he could tell the people there that the engagement was off. They couldn't take the appointment back. As a plan it wasn't great, which was why he'd put it out of his mind until three days before the interview, but as the deadline approached, it became more attractive. It beat not getting Xaviers. All he needed was a woman who was reasonably bright and reasonably attractive in a sedate sort of way who was willing to lie through her teeth and then quietly disappear. His first thought had been Dia in the apartment downstairs. They'd had dated briefly and parted friends. She would probably do it, he knew, but she'd make a mess of it. Dia was too modern-looking and too sharp-tongued. He needed a…a wifely-looking woman. An innocent-looking woman. A woman who could lie without batting an eye. Nupur Bhushan. No, he thought, but logically, she was his best hope. Stories told, her card said, so truth was not one of her virtues. And Dia had said she was straight as an arrow, and he trusted Dia's judgment if not her restraint. Nupur was about four inches shorter than he was, with petite body; if he put her in a salwar khameez, Mathews might go for it. Since she seemed to hate him for some reason, she'd probably have to be in desperate need of money before she'd agree to spend any amount of time with him, but she didn't look rich. Desperation could drive a person to do things he or she would never contemplate ordinarily. I should know, Mayank thought gloomily, and stared at the ceiling. Make a note to call Dia about the Bhushan woman, he told himself, and then realized that he didn't have time to make notes. It was Tuesday. He was due in Xaviers on Friday. He felt dizzy for a moment, and realized it was because he was holding his breath, his response to tension for as far back as he could remember. "Breathe, Sharma," his football coach had yelled at him in high school the first time he'd passed out during a game. "You gotta keep breathing if you want to play the game." He inhaled sharply through his nose and then stretched out his hand for the phone and punched in Dia's number. Five minutes later, Mayank was listening to Dia laugh herself sick.

D-"You told them what?" she gasped at him when she could talk. "I can't believe it."

M-"Knock it off. It's not funny. This is my career at stake here."

D-"And we all know that's more important to you than any of your body parts." She snickered. "I love this. You want me to be the little wife? No problem. I'll get one of those old fashioned salwars—"

M-"No." he broke in before Dia could get too attached to the idea. "I need a professional liar, somebody who won't start giggling when the chips are down."

D-"Nupur." Dia's voice went up a notch in approval. "She's wonderful, absolutely trustworthy."

M-"Except she tells lies for a living."

D-"She tells stories," she corrected Mayank with some heat. "Unreal but not untrue, that's what Nupur says. And anyway, it's not like you're dudh-ke-dulhe hue here, bud. You're the one who created the Wife Who Could." Mayank exhaled in frustration. "I can't believe you lied in the first place," she went on. "I would have said it wasn't possible. You really are a stick-in-the-mud, but maybe this will break you out of that rut—" Mayank glared at the phone.

M-"I like my rut. I have to go. Good-bye."

D-"Because you really are solidifying before my eyes—" she said, and he hung up.

Nupur spent the next morning trying to drum up work and failing miserably. When she got home, the kitten had escaped and was sitting on the doorstep waiting for her. So was the landlord, a man she secretly called Grumpy Govind. Oh, no, Nupur thought, and then straightened her shoulders and went to save her cat, marching past the dark-haired thug from upstairs who was washing his nasty black car. She disliked his car almost as much as she disliked him; it looked like something Darth Vader would drive. Govind pointed at the kitten as if it were a cockroach.

G-"That's a cat."

N-"Yes, I know." Nupur took a deep breath and then smiled at him. Nupur knew she wasn't beautiful, but God had given her something better than beauty—a glowing, wide-mouthed, man-melting smile, courtesy of her mother and a long line of women who'd dazzled their way through history. It was her only physical weapon, but it never failed her. It didn't now. Govind smirked at her. Behind her she heard the cat kicker turn off the water just in time for Annie to tear out one of her ungodly meows. Govind flinched.

G-"Nupur, you're a month behind on the rent, and you're not allowed to have pets."

N-"I know." she pumped out more wattage on her smile. "You know I'll pay the rent. I've lived here for six years, and I've never let you down, have I?" Govind closed his eyes.

G-"No, but the cat—"

N-"I'm only keeping the cat until its owners get back," she said truthfully, since she was sure Annie's owner would never get back to this apartment house. "It's a very valuable cat, you know." She dropped her voice to make Govind a conspirator with her. "One of a kind. An Alizarin Crimson. Very unusual voice. Don't tell anyone, or there'll be catnappers all over the place." Govind blinked and she let her voice go back up to its natural register. "I'm sure Dia won't mind, and the people upstairs will never know. It's such a little cat."

G-"But they do know. Dr. Sharma knows. He's right here."

Nupur turned to look at the cat kicker. He was as tall and broad and threatening as she'd told Annie, his hair thick and brown-black his eyes dark and intense. He leaned on the car watching them, and he didn't look angry, he looked calculating. Nupur went for it.

N-"Do you mind, Dr. Sharma?" She hit him with her smile in the best tradition of her ancestresses. He blinked. And then he grinned at her. It wasn't the usual feeble smirk that men gave her after she'd blasted them, it was a wide-awake grin with a dimple twinkling on his cheek. He had a great smile for a thug.

M-"I don't mind at all, Miss Bhushan. It's an honor to have an Alizarin Crimson in the building." Nupur felt uneasy, but she wasn't about to look a gift jerk in the mouth, even if he did kick cats.

N-"Thank you, Dr. Sharma. That's very sweet of you." She smiled at him again, and his own smile widened. Strange man. "I'll have the rent for you soon," she promised Govind, and he went off, shaking his head. Nupur scooped up the kitten and turned to go, but the cat kicker called her back.

M-"Could I have a word with you, Miss Bhushan?"

I knew it, Nupur told herself. It was too good to be true. She took a deep breath and turned back, smiling her brains out, prepared to do whatever she had to do to keep Annie from becoming an orphan again.

Note: Thanx for all the comments!! So what did you'll think? boring?