Chapter Sixteen
"What you must understand about me is that I'm a deeply unhappy person."
John Green, Looking for Alaska
Sharon liked to do everything with a sense of humor. More often than not, nothing she did was convincing enough if she did not wear a smile through the process and laugh when she was done. When they took to calling her s**t Raiprakash in college, she responded to the call with a smile and got a tattoo that read Ramble On' right above her breasts. When she was supposed to do something with her degree, she opened a chain of nightclubs with her father's money and made a website about it using her own programming and funds. But the chances of her turning Reyansh down with what one could call a sense of humor not only seemed cruel but also fairly impossible too. For, Sharon could do it smiling but the laughter at the end would go amiss. That's to say, she could think of hilarity with which to face the man but she was going to have to make do with irony.
Then it occurred to her that she was knocking at the door of a house in which lived the man she was about to reject and also the man who summed up to be the only reason behind it. Sharon did not for a second doubt that Reyansh was stuff of her father's dreams. His sense of humor was also brighter than Swayum's which meant less complexity any day. But one of the funnier things she had done in her life was to fall in love with Swayum, who had a dead wife he would always love. Come to think of it, Sharon did not believe one could fall out of love. She also had no reason to believe that all those who thought got married for love were right. But Swayum and Rhea were. One irony enmeshed with another, it was getting far too hilarious. So, she was chuckling and singing Keep on Loving You by Reo Speedwagon, picturing her '67 Chevy Camaro simultaneously as the door was flung open.
"Oh, hi," Reyansh greeted her, expectant ecstasy oozing out of him.
"Hey, man." She waved and went straight to the couch and threw herself on it.
"Yeah, so," Reyansh sounded expectant still.
"Do you love me?" Sharon asked him, placing her hands between her thighs and jumping in her seat a bit.
"I don't, yet." He sat down opposite her, looking amused, maybe even excited about a brainteaser she could aim at him.
"As it so happens, I am in love with your brother and I am not planning to do anything about it." Sharon said dreamily, smiling.
"I know you are." Rey said but he didn't seem satisfied with his reply. Taking his time, he began thus, five minutes later. "I like you. I haven't liked anyone since I loved my cheating wife." Reyansh was smiling too now.
"If I liked you but did not love your brother or anybody's brother or sister for that matter, you and I would have been one helluva pair. You're real smart, you know that?" Sharon was getting goofy because maybe Reyansh liked it with a sense of humor too.
She pushed her back into a pillow and relaxed, smiling broadly at Reyansh while he was partially spooked by her behavior but all the same, unwilling to give up. Reyansh told her that he grew up with the guy she loved. Sharon nodded through his account of Swayum's nature as a child and a teenager. When he was done, the following was Sharon's reply.
"So, you mean that he was the kind of kid who felt guilty for liking a coffee shake when he had already decided he liked mango best?" Sharon smilingly made an effort to confirm.
"Exactly," Rey nodded somberly.
"You don't seem very happy about proposing to me after all." Sharon noticed.
"I don't. Because let's face it, Swayum does like coffee shake."
That was about it. Sharon didn't have to worry about rejecting Reyansh because he took his proposal back in the twenty seconds that followed and they laughed much later into the night. A few grunts down the hall from Mr. Shikhawat's room here and Swayum's arrival at two in the morning there. Barring that, Sharon and as she now called him fulltime, Reyansh Shikhawat talked well into the morning. They had become friends as they decided in unison Swayum's milkshake preferences. Reyansh was bound to feel a bit hurt and Sharon decided not to think about it because she could do nothing about it. It stung a bit, she knew well. Besides, he loved someone who'd committed adultery. He didn't love her.
"So, we're calling Tanya, She-Who-Broke-Reyansh-Shikhawat's-Heart-Beyond-Repair?" Reyansh Shikhawat asked laughingly.
"I'd have added and brains' right after heart' but I decided to go easy on you." Sharon remarked, getting up and stretching. Dawn was seconds away. As the sun rose, commotion besides Reyansh Shikhawat and Sharon's antics started to emerge. Turned out Swayum was awake and "YOU ARE STILL HERE, RAIPRAKASH?"
"Raiprakash, huh, your brother is definitely not a morning person." Sharon giggled, bumping her shoulder into his playfully.
"You should tell him I took back the proposal entirely and you and I have become legitimate buddies over the past few hours. Such good buddies I am clearly overlooking that you're clearly very hot forevermore." Reyansh Shikhawat first advised then announced.
*
Sharon did not leave. She attended to the nature's call and brushed her teeth with a spare (unused) toothbrush before heading to Swayum's room. He looked like someone broke all his toys and said sorry. What was worse was that he also looked like the same person had gifted him a room full of Barbie Dolls.
"Somebody take your ice cream?" Sharon decided it was best not to mention Barbie Dolls and jumped into his bed over the covers.
"I'm sorry I shouted." Swayum muttered, looking just as sorry as Sharon would be to get her car serviced or by finding new music from forty years ago she totally loved.
"No problem." Sharon announced.
"What did you say to him?" Swayum asked, looking down at his bed, running his hands through his hair.
"I didn't have to accept or reject him. He took his proposal back, deciding to leave the basket case for his brother." Sharon laughed.
"You're not a basket case, more like a nutcase." Swayum said to her in mock consolation, patting her arm now.
"You're suddenly chirpier, Shikhawat." Sharon noticed.
"I am." Swayum said flirtatiously and went pale with if Reyansh Shikhawat was to be believed, guilt. All of that Swayum managed in less than ten seconds.
"Anyway, Daddy Dearest must never know about this. He wouldn't be able to live with the sheer agony of it all." Sharon sternly warned him.
"Why would I tell him my brother proposed to you and then took it back?" Swayum asked.
"I don't know, I'm trying to make sure here. Because you have no idea how mad he'd be if anybody ever let slip of this." Sharon said, now smiling again.
"I feel for your father." Swayum mouthed.
"No, you don't. You could throw a party right now."
Sharon took his hand and kissed it, after which she told him she was off to work and left his room. A minute later, he heard her yell Later, Reyansh Shikhawat' and the front door being closed softly.
Anupamaa
55