CHAPTER 10
A vulnerable moment "I like my edits to the policy just fine, Adi. We're keeping it that way."
"Maithili, these are really strong words. The shareholders are not going to like this. We're going back to my version."
"Why do you businessmen have to be so…slimy? And what's wrong with using strong words where strong words are needed. Can't we just be honest?"
"It's called being diplomatic."
"Yes, that's the problem. That diplomacy is talked about as a
good thing in the business world," she said with exasperation.
This is what he kept falling for. For her unbridled honesty. For her refusal to talk in terms of profit, losses, shares. For her striking and steadfast dedication to her ideals and principles.
"We're keeping my edits," she ended the discussion.
He sat in helpless silence for a moment. And then continued, "I'm vetoing that."
"I'm vetoing your veto."
"That…doesn't make sense. I don't think a veto can be vetoed."
She sighed, "I'm not letting this go," she brought her hand to her face, resting her cheek on her hand and stared at him with determination."
He smiled, slightly amused.
"Unless…," she continued, "you let me have full control over the wording of the next section of the policy."
He raised his eyebrow. She smiled, satisfied with her clever bargain.
"You are…equally, no, much..more..tricky than most businessmen."
She met this comment with a shrug, "just doing my best to adjust here."
As if he needed more reasons to be attracted to her. Her wit was such an immense turn-on.
"Fine. It's a deal," he conceded.
He wanted to think about the damn policy, not her. His efforts at distracting himself failed. His eyes wandered back to her smug face. He thought back to when he almost kissed her last week, and how her voice had gone weak for that moment as she faltered. How he'd like to corner her like that again. He'd like to see her use her wit to get out of that situation, he thought as he pulled his lower lip between his teeth. He leaned back in his chair and glanced at her fingers dashing about the keyboard of her laptop. She's already writing that next section, he sighed.
"Maithili…have mercy. Think of the shares. Please."
She smiled, ignoring his comment, and kept her eyes glued to her monitor.
She was actually replying to an email from her friend Pragati. Pragati ran a charitable organization in Mumbai, and was Maithili's college friend. She wrote to Maithili to invite her to a dance they were organizing next week.
But she let him think she was writing the policy section. It was cute when he sounded helpless.
* * *"Pragati! Hello? Are you listening to me?" Gauri asked impatiently.
Pragati looked up from the monitor. "Sorry, hun, what was that?"
"I want to meet the equipment people. I have some lighting stuff to sort out for the dance next week."
"Sure. How are the rehearsals going?"
"Pretty good. I've got 6 people dancing on stage with me, and most of them know their steps well by now, but we've still got to work out the dynamics between us, but I want to do those rehearsals with the stage lights in effect."
Pragati nodded. She had taken an immense liking to Gauri since she met her last month. She had approached Gauri after seeing her performance at a dance festival in Mumbai. When Gauri agreed to do the dance for free for the cause of charity, Pragati was thrilled. With the program approaching in less than a week, Pragati was smashing their heads against the wall with the stress of organization, but seeing that Gauri seemed to have things under control made her smile.
"Woo-hoo! The show just sold out. I just sold the last two tickets to my friend over email," announced Pragati after reading the email she just received from Maithili.
"Perfect," Gauri flashed her a smile, "I'm glad I already bought 3 tickets for my parents and best friend or they'd be cursing me right now."
"Yep. No empty seats left," Pragati said with immense satisfaction.
* * *Percy stood intently listening to the jazz variation that played into his ears through the headphones. He was standing in his favourite section of his favourite music store with headphones in his ears playing a new jazz CD. He made it a point to test drive CDs before buying them, given how much terrible music was produced these days. Okay, worth a buy, he thought to himself and grabbed the CD off the shelf.
He made his way towards the cashier when someone crashed into him and dropped the dozen or so CDs she was holding in her hand.
"Idiot! Watch where you're going!" she yelled.
"Excuse me,
you watch where you're going," he shot back.
It was one of the rich socialite girls he had seen at the Mehra reception. She runs into him and yells at him for
her mistake, he thought.
"Oh. Tum woh…bandwaale ho na?" she said dismissively
"I'm a jazz musician. And yes, we have a band. But judging from the stupid pop albums you're buying, I doubt you know anything about music," he said, pointing his fingers towards her salsa pop albums.
How dare he? "Whatever, bandwaala. Don't you have a shaadi to play at or something? Run along, now."
She sniggered, turned around and started walking away from him. He grabbed her arm and turned her towards him, standing a little too close to her for comfort. She resisted but he was clearly stronger than her. She became silent at this sudden shift in power balance.
"Listen, you spoiled brat! Even if I was playing music at shaadis I'd be much better off than you…you dim-witted, rich snob!"
Shock invaded her. Nobody had talked to her like this before. She felt so angry, and tears almost fell from her eyes as she realized that people in the store were watching them. She stared at him with her mouth open, too furious to say anything.
"Anyway, there's no point even
trying to talk to people like you," he said derisively, letting her go. He angrily stuffed the CD he almost bought in a nearby shelf and stormed out of the store.
She fumed as his figure slowly disappeared, incensed that a two-bit bandwaala insulted her in front of so many people. She would have to teach him a lesson. I'll show this loser who Tanu Mehra is, she thought.
* * *Maithili sipped her coffee and listened to Adi describe Prism's past legal practices. The arbitration had almost come to a close. They just had some formalities left to do, like making sure the appropriate signatures approved the newly-prepared documents. They'd have to brief everyone in a meeting, which some shareholders as well as the workers' union representatives, who were Maithili's clients in this legal process, would attend and shake hands over the new settlements. All of these formalities wouldn't take longer than 3 or 4 days. And none of them required that she return to his office again.
When Adi finished talking, she set her coffee down and leaned back in her chair, stretching her neck to relieve tension.
"I guess we've almost wrapped things up," he said, eyeing her.
"Hmm," she nodded, trying to massage herself with her tired eyelids covering her eyes. She tilted her head and gently rubbed her fingers into the stretched side of her neck. Adi was jealous of that hand. He wanted to replace it with his own hand. Or maybe his lips.
"A couple of days left and it should all be over," she said, opening her eyes and facing him.
She was right. It hit him that he would no longer have a reason to spend all day with her, talk to her, or even just see her.
A moment of panic erupted through him, clearly showing on his face. Maithili sensed this and spoke up with a worried tone.
"Well, you're happy, aren't you? With how things have worked out?"
"Yes. Immensely," he said confidently, with his expression changing slightly.
"It's just that…"
"What?"
"Well, you're going to leave."
She smiled, suddenly figuring out the reason for his panic. She absent-mindedly placed the tip of her pen between her side teeth.
"True," she said, as consciously expressionless as possible. She liked this. She could get used to this. To having him worried over not seeing her.
Out of habit, she changed the subject. She always changed the subject when it got to a tender moment between them, so he knew it was coming.
"Oh, Gauri is performing at a charity event that my friend is organizing. And I just bought the last two tickets…apparently the show is sold out."
"Oh?" he said, feigning interest.
"Yeah, and papa isn't really into dance shows so much…"
"Uh huh." Wait. Was she trying to ask if he'd like to come? No, she wouldn't do that. Did she expect him to ask
her if he could go with her? He wondered how to respond. But she talked again before he could say anything.
"I was thinking…I should take Ashu. He obviously has a thing for Gauri, and I think she'd be happy to see him there. What do you think?"
Ashu? She wanted to take
Ashu? Was this a joke?
She was being naughty, she knew, but this was so much fun.
"Yes, it'll be perfect," she answered her own question. She knotted her fingers together and brought her elbows to the desk, staring at his face for a second, scanning it for emotion. He was definitely irritated, but she wasn't satisfied. She reached into her bag and pulled out her cell phone.
"Adi, what's Ashu's number? I'm going to ask him about this right now."
He sighed.
"I don't know, Maithili. You think it's a good idea? Ashu likes dance and all but he's so shy and he doesn't like being in huge crowds. And it's not like he's constantly stressed like
me that he needs a break…"
She interrupted him, "Oh please, Adi. You make it sound like he's phobic of crowds. And don't you think it'd be cute if something happened between him and Gauri?"
"Since when did you take up matchmaking, Maithili?" he asked dryly, rolling his eyes.
"Number, please."
He gave up and told her Ashu's number. He helplessly watched her dial the number.
From the one side of the conversation he could hear, he could sense that Ashu had agreed to go to the show with Maithili. That dog, thought Adi. He would probably finally get a chance to stare at Gauri from a safe distance while sitting next to Maithili, blissfully unaware of how that was Adi's spot.
"Okay, I'll pick you up next Wednesday at 7. Don't forget!" she said into the phone and put the mobile back into her purse.
She looked at Adi with the most innocent smile she could manage.
"Well done," he congratulated her sarcastically.
"I know," she said. Her thirst to torture him a little was quenched.
He became quiet and sat with an uncharacteristic sulk on his face. Something about his cute sulk tugged at her a bit and she felt regretful. She searched for something to quickly say to cheer him up.
"I'll miss working with you," she admitted. Both to him and to herself.
His eyes brightened at this and he looked up at her with a faint smile emerging on his face.
"I wish this arbitration had gone on a little longer," he said.
She was taken off guard. She opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted.
"Don't change the subject, Maithili. I
know you are about to do that."
"Adi, I--"
"Don't. I wish this arbitration had gone on longer. More than just a little longer. Can we leave it at that?"
"Okay."
He looked up. There was her weak voice again. His face softened at the emergence of a small but significant breaking of her defenses.
"Do you ever ask yourself why you change the subject at particular times?" He was determined to make use of this opportunity.
"What do you mean?" She pretended to not know what he was talking about. But he knew she knew exactly what he meant.
"What are you scared of?"
She looked away, avoiding the question. She was going to pretend she didn't hear that.
A moment passed.
"Geez, look at the time! I better get going," she said and picked up her things.
He got up with her and quickly walked towards the door, forming a barrier between Maithili and the door.
"Answer me," he demanded.
He walked towards her steadily. She slowly stepped backwards until she hit his desk. He had cornered her again. Her bag hung on her shoulder and her hands reached for the edge of the desk behind her, and she looked away from his face. She would not look at his face, she decided.
He brought his hands to her face and turned it towards him.
"Afraid of looking at me?"
"Adi, I know what you're getting at. But we're in a professional relationship right now. I can't bear it if my clients accuse me of not maintaining a neutral position. How would you feel if someone threw cold water on all our efforts and disqualified this arbitration? And by the way, the arbitration is not completely over yet."
His hands moved away from her face and fell to his sides. He processed what she said. She was right, and felt guilty for putting her in that position.
"Okay, so that's it? You have no other hesitation towards it?" He had to ask her this.
"Towards what?" She wanted him to let go of this topic.
"Towards me. Us. This…closeness," he said impatiently, inching even closer to her as if to demonstrate what he meant.
"I don't know," her eyes fell down. She focused them on the fabric of his shirt, first on the folds, then on the thread of the fabric, and then to the spaces between the weaves.
"What are you unsure about?"
It took her a while to reply. "Everything."
"But I'm not. I'm sure that I want you. That I want my arms around you at this very moment, that my lips are just
aching to touch yours. Maithili, it hurts to not be able to touch you, hold you…," he trailed off.
She looked up, stunned at his disclosure.
He leaned his face towards hers. She felt him overpowering her again, and he was pulling her eyes into his. She rested her palms on his chest. She had meant to use her palms to push him away, but she couldn't. He took her hands into his and gently moved them behind her, onto the edge of the desk. He held her hands there and stared into her face. He wouldn't kiss her if she wasn't sure he wanted her to. He didn't want their first kiss to be like that. He sighed, and slowly dropped his head onto her shoulder.
She was puzzled he didn't kiss her. Did she even want him to? She didn't know. But she had hurt him, it was clear. She didn't mean to, but she really was unsure of what was happening. She couldn't lie to him. She couldn't kiss him if she didn't know if that's what she really wanted. That would hurt him even more.
"I'm sorry," she whispered into his ear.
They stood there for a few moments, with their hands linked behind her and his head resting on her shoulder.
"I should go," she said, gathering herself.
He lifted his head, nodding gently. He stepped back, looked at their linked hands, and then let go. She moved past him slowly.
"Bye, Adi." Her weak voice again.
She walked away, taking small and unsure steps towards the door. He heard her gently close the door after her.
Edited by --arti-- - 17 years ago
CID
