New SS: Starlight Express CLOSED Indefinitely - Page 41

He bored into the black rectangular object unable to veer his attention onto anything else; as if it was one of those angry deities that needed his full reverence and would punish him otherwise. His cellphone wouldn't ring for all the two hours he'd been home and now he thought his mind was seeing double images in a blur from having stared at it for this long a time.

Once they had embarked at the SF station, she walked ahead of him and had stopped before the exit that took them to the line of hungry cabs waiting by the curbside. With her bag in her hands, she'd not looked at him, until he was directly standing in front of her. After a brief silence, she faced him with a calm; a serene smile that he couldn't entirely place on her eyes that flitted everywhere except him like that of a humming bird.

"So I will see you then..." She said, holding that blush that was slowly making its way to her cheeks. He vaguely felt an urge to ask for her number again. But his words felt exiled for another want and this was new: this inexplicable, raw wandering desire to bend down and place a peck on her blush. It could be the light now that they were out in the open; or it could be just that she was flushed with the awkwardness that came from not knowing how to bid their goodbyes when they didn't have a real name for their time on the train. Perhaps his thought showed in his eyes, and he found her turning another shade darker up on her high cheek bones, making it all the more difficult for him to stand there and do nothing. He could kiss her and regret for the rest of his life, in the event she didn't welcome it. Or he could just wait...wait for all the hope that the same light hue of her cheek gave him.

"I will hold you to it..." he said and before he could offer to give her a ride in his cab, she suggested they take different rides.

It was one another thing he'd learnt in their little time spent confined in his roomette and in the lounge car. That she was the most spontaneous and her natural self when she wasn't coaxed or compelled. And it wasn't just belief or trust that it showed but also conveyed an understanding of her sense of honor for her words. If one doesn't call all this clarity about her from a single night's train ride, a true Christmas miracle, then what is a miracle? And so there he'd stood, at the spot by the entryway arch and watch her get into a cab - without having gotten her phone number or insist on dropping her off - and ride away into the vastness of hills of concrete and crowds of masses who didn't know who she was...

But it mattered to her that he did know her in the ways nobody else had cared to look at her. It was an eager, knowing look, trying to see beyond her fumbles and skin. She was the pitting image of what her mom had painted for Abhinav. Well! she was what her mother had made her to be for all her life. In the seconds when he'd confronted her with his feelings, pulled her into his arms, he'd torn apart that mama's girl who couldn't run to the phone and ask for what was to be done then. He was her secret; a secret that was living inside the pocket of her consciousness, taking him with her through the streets of SF; a secret that was inspiring a blind transformation; an exhilarating adventure.

She bared her teeth in the mirror and turned her face from left to right. Twisted her mouth and wiggled her eyebrows. Smiled silly and then shyly. Later the next second, she faked a weeping so drawing it broke her heart. Then she snarled at the image she couldn't identify with and rolled her eyes as she walked back to her bed. Who was the person she saw then? The one who her mother had molded in all those years or the one who she made her to be in the moments she was with him. She circled her neck, hoping for the nerves at the back of her neck to unknot. Holding her face in her palms, her elbows on her knees, her feet drummed on the floor, while she controlled a rush to pick up the phone that was resting beside her on the table.

The ticking of the clock seemed to grow louder with those passing seconds, drowning out the noise of the hurrying traffic outside. When she could no longer contain herself, after giving herself a two hour reprieve, she dialed his number. He sounded urgent and restrained and she couldn't help but give away a throaty laugh at that.

"It's Christmas eve Maan...So I was thinking maybe I still have time to put up that Christmas tree after all"

"Ok..." He said, drawling unsure.

"So..." She waited hoping for him to get the hint.

"So?" He asked.

She rolled her eyes again. "Ok...Fine. I need some help carrying the tree upstairs...This year I will have a real tree, a real star...real everything"

"Wait..." He cut in, "Let me get this straight. You don't want me to have your phone number but you are ok to let me inside your house? Where there are more possible dangers than any silly school girl can possibly dream of"

He couldn't have been more sarcastic and cutting, but she couldn't entirely take him to be rude. She blamed it on the effect he had on her.

"Uh! Do you remember what I said before I walked into your roomette?" She asked.

"Yes...you said you came back for your phone"

"No..." She protested, showing a mild frustration "I mean after I picked up my phone and before...you...you..." She still couldn't bring herself to say a few things to him, without a vibrant recollection flashing in her mind's eye, "you pulled me into..."

"Ah! that..."

"Yes...We will behave like adults, we will do adult things and not act as if we are children...Do you get it?" She couldn't tell why he was suddenly pleased with the trace of chiding in her voice. It took her a second before she fully understood the implication and quickly jumped to clarify. Of course she was talking in context to the Christmas tree. But there was no chance in the world he could read it without the sexual innuendo that was now apparent to her.

"I didn't mean whatever it is that you are thinking..." She was still uncertain to know if he'd picked up her discomfort from having to explain her true intentions behind her statement.

"And what am I thinking?"

"Ok...Maan...I'm putting the phone down..."

"Here...threats are one thing I don't take well to" He sounded serious for the first time.

"Alright...I just need help with the tree...I'm on the second floor"

She waited anxious for a response and when the receiver was silent for a long minute, she called his name.

"Yes I'm here...running an ad in Craigslist for someone to haul a Christmas tree to the second floor"

"Maan..." She couldn't believe he was making her mad within a day of meeting her. However, she'd counted on it to happen much earlier.

"Yes...Geet..."

When she didn't respond, he spoke again. "Ok...That was a bad joke. But would you come out for coffee after that...or could I take you for coffee while we are at shopping for a tree?" He couldn't have sounded more attractive than when he had used 'we' in his proposal. He could have worded the request any which way, but he'd meant to say 'we'. Not her; But we. She was feeling a gentle stroke of tenderness that could only come from deep thoughtful words as the sound of the word wafted out the earphone and entered her body; a weaving of soft ribbons, rustling down to her toes.

She couldn't resist, what she came to offer him next. "Even better...I will make you coffee with chocolate and marshmallows...Is that a good pay off for your services rendered?"

"Any time...Milady" He was oozing a charm that made her want to twirl around like a gypsy in her heady madness.

They hung up after deciding to meet at the blue bottle co coffee shop in another hours' time. She ran to the closet undecided, never having lived through the rush and insufferable tantrums that a girl came over when she dressed up for an undeclared date. Good lord! she was a teenager again and he was making her one. How she adored and hated him for making her a silly school girl and yet feel wanted like she was his lady? For giving her a chance to re-live those years she'd undeniably thought had lost living someone else's dreams.