Chapter 3-
(guys who all hv not read ch 2 its on pg 4 bcoz otherwise u won't understand this ch and in this ch its mentioned that ananya's family stays in Lancashire,its a town far frm London.while u all knw ananya stays in proper London)
"We know the feeling", the blurb said. "We are Sally and Julia and we started Just for Tonight because we know exactly what it's like to be missing that one vital accessory for important occasions. If you've got the perfect dress, the perfect jewelry, the perfect shoes, why not choose the perfect man to complement them?"
Just too easy for words.
It wasn't, of course. The process reminded me of going out for dinner when you're feeling vaguely sick and the only dish you could really fancy picking at is "off." Still, my second choice was not only perfectly passable, but also available.
"He's prepared to do it," I told Aliix on the Tuesday evening. "Julia Whatsit rang me at work this morning and said no problem."
"No problem?" she echoed. "No problem for her, maybe"all she's got to do is take the money. You haven't thought this through, Ananya. It's a disaster just waiting to happen."
The last thing I needed was anybody fanning my butterflies, so to speak. "Will you stop being so bloody negative? It'll be fine. I'm meeting him on Friday for a quick drink."
"Fine?" At it again like a human echo chamber, she picked at morsels of red pepper from our stir-fry mix.
"How can a quick drink possibly guarantee it'll be 'fine'? What if he bumps into somebody he knows at the reception and they give him away in front of everybody?"
"Then I'll commit instant hara-kiri with that lovely big knife they always provide for cake-cutting."
"For God's sake! I wasn't joking!"
Neither was I.
"The odds are millions to one," I pointed out.
"Don't kid yourself. People bump into old acquaintances all the time."
"Okay, thousands to one. And even if it was only ten to one, I can't cancel him now. I told Mum he's almost certainly coming and she practically had an orgasm on the phone."
"And I'm sure even total psychos can seem perfectly charming over a pint in a pub," she went on, regardless. "If you're really planning to drive a man you don't know from Fred Flintstone to darkest Lancashire, don't come running to me when they find you dead in a ditch by Newport Pagnell Services."
"He's been vetted/reffered! They all have!"
"What 'vetting'? A couple of references? Look at all those pedophiles who were 'vetted' before they got jobs in children's homes."
Nutter tendencies were the least of my worries. I added what she'd left of the vegetables to the wok
"If he does dump my naked carcass in a ditch, I just hope he doesn't dump it facedown. I wouldn't want sundry Old Bill sniggering at my massive, deceased, white bottom."
"Will you stop going on about your bottom? At least you've got boobs to match! Both of mine barely make a handful for Calum!"
"Is he moaning? Anyway, he's got big hands." I slung a packet of sauce in the wok and sat at our horrible little breakfast bar.
Like the rest of the kitchen, it was done in old-fashioned, pale blue Formica. I was beginning to hate pale blue Formica. I was even beginning to look in the kitchen bit of the IKEA catalog and wondering about how to contrive a kitchen-only fire. It was the only way our tightfisted pig of a landlord would ever do it. Ace was very adept at burning saucepans; if I could persuade him that oven chips tasted much better when done in a chip pan, we might be in with a chance.
Aliix sat opposite. "So what's this chap's name?"
"Ronnie Sen."
"And what does he do when he's not escorting?"
I didn't quite like the tiny emphasis she put on "escorting." She contrived to make it sound exactly like "male prostituting."
"He used to be with one of the high street banks, but he's taking a career-change break."
"He's been made redundant, in other words."
"So what if he has? It probably wasn't his fault He looked nice on the video"looked like he'd got a twinkle in his eye, and if ever I needed a man with GSOH, it's now."
"If he's short of cash I suppose it's almost legit," she conceded. "I mean, what sort of man would do that if he didn't need the money?"
"There's nothing wrong with it."
"Oh, come on. Would you want to be involved with a man who did that from choice?"
I refused to answer this on the grounds of the Kashyap Amendment: i.e., I preferred not to think about it.
"I'll have hours to brief him on the way up," I said instead
"About where we met, precisely how pissed I was at the time, my addiction to hot Ribena, and so on."
"I just hope you can remember everything you told your mother. You'd better write it all down beforehand so you can synchronize your lies." She said this in a tone of, "And on your own head be it."
"He's taking a risk, too," I pointed out. "For all he knows I could be some Hannibalina Lecterette, planning to tear his liver out and eat it, lightly sauteed with chips and goolie sauce."
"Let's just hope he doesn't think you're planning to 'eat' him," she said, in a tone I didn't quite care for. Sardonic, I think you might call it. "I really can't bear the thought of some aren't-I-gorgeous prat thinking you can't get yourself a man. Make sure he knows desperation is not in your vocabulary"you're just incredibly choosy."
"I shall say nothing at all. If I start saying, 'I'm not desperate, you know,' he'll immediately think I must be, or it wouldn't even occur to me that he might be thinking I am."
I wasn't particularly desperate, in spite of having no carnal knowledge since Abhi. I once read that unlike men, who get progressively more obsessed with sex the longer they go without, women do the exact opposite. The longer they go without, the more they think they'd prefer Pride and Prejudice and a Nutella sandwich. I wouldn't say it exactly applied to me. In the absence of anything both fanciable and available I'd indulged in the odd fantasy about the unavailable, e.g., George Clooney and Mr. Darcy (not both at once, though now I come to think of it, such a fantasy might steam-clean the windows nicely). With Mr. D I fancied myself as a Moll Flanders type who led him gloriously astray. Aliix and I were always a bit worried about Mr. Darcy, if you want the truth. We'd had long discussions about whether he was too noble and proper to have had any practice before his wedding night. We didn't want poor Lizzie thinking, Forsooth, is that it?
I was kidding myself I was calm when I went to bed that night. I was kidding myself no latent panics lay under the surface.
My brain had to prove me wrong. While I tried to sleep, it rehashed everything Aliix had said and turned it into nightmare composites of Four Weddings and a Funeral' and Men Behaving Badly'. For example:
"Well, f**k me, if it isn't old Ronnie." some drunken prat would bellow, three feet away from Mum and Shreya Malhotra. "Heard you'd got the boot from Wanka-Bank and gone gigolo/escorting to pay the bills. Beats working, that's all I can say. Any passable totty, or do you just grit the old todger and think of the dosh?"
Two days later, back in plaintive mode, Mum phoned.
"I don't know how this wedding's ever going to get organized.Preeti still hasn't found any shoes and can you believe they haven't even booked the honeymoon yet?"
"You book it, then. Tell them you've fixed up a week in Mablethorpe"that'll sort them out."
"There's no need to be rude about Mablethorpe, dear.They were about to book a safari but Preeti suddenly went off the idea"the thought of all those horrible big wigglies was putting her off. They were going to be camping in the bush and you know what Preeti's like with wigglies. Anyway, she came round in the end"I really thought she was being very silly"but by then all the hotels were booked up"I think they had a little tiff about it. Lord knows where they're going now"Manav's still trying for cancellations."
I wasn't in the mood for this. Not only was I in labor with several premature kittens in case Ronnie turned out to be a prat, I'd not had the best day at work, either. At least three departments were screaming for high-caliber new staff, who were not that easy to recruit when Zeus and attendant gods in the boardroom had decreed that in view of the economic climate, salaries for new staff would be reappraised (i.e., the lowest we could get away with).
Despite this, the gods had further decreed that we were all getting fat and lazy and could do with some unconventional training to toughen us up. As a result, Sandie from Training and Development was trying to pin me down for some horrific course in Wales, where army men,ex-SAS sadists made you go potholing, generally reduced you to a gibbering wreck, and charged two thousand quid a head for the privilege. I'd spent half the morning dodging Sandie and the other half bitching to Luke from Accounts about peanuts, monkeys, and why couldn't they stop paying fortunes to ex-SAS sadists and up the salaries instead?
Luke had said, "Buggered if I know"fancy a quick jar at lunchtime?" I'd had three jars and two packets of smoky bacon, and a headache all afternoon. I was beginning to wish I were Aliix, who'd recently gone freelance in graphic design. There was much to be said for being your own boss; nobody wanted to send you potholing and if you sloped off to the pub at lunchtime at least you could have a siesta afterward.
After wittering on for ages about everything else that a) had already gone wrong, or b) hadn't yet, but undoubtedly would,
Mum went on,""I expect you'd like a word with Preeti"I'll just call her..."
I wasn't in the mood for her, either. If my main problem had consisted of where to stick a pin in Faraway brochures, I'd have been happiness made flesh. I'd have gone around dispensing beatific smiles to traffic wardens and those irritating old people who hold you up in post offices, until they locked me up as a nutter.
I'm afraid I didn't even try not to sound exasperated.
"For God's sake, haven't you grown out of this wiggly thing yet?"
"It wasn't the wigglies. Okay, I hate the thought of them crawling over the bed, but it's just so unbelievably expensive"nearly three weeks"Malindi and a trip to Zanzibar, too"and he only wants to stay in really swanky hotels. It seems obscene when the people are so poor."
She might have had a point, but I wasn't in the mood to admit it.
"It's your honeymoon, for God's sake"if he wants to lash out, do you have to make an ideological thing of it? Since when did you go all ideological, any-way? Give everybody massive tips, if it'll make you feel better!"
"Please don't start having a go at me! I'm just about up to here"Mum's driving me mad"on and on nonstop about dresses and presents and speeches till I want to scream"I'm just so worn out with the whole business, and, well..."
I suddenly realized that under the tension, she sounded almost tearful.
"Well, what?"
"Oh, nothing"I suppose I'm just hormonal, but everything's getting on top of me and Manav was getting impatient over the honeymoon, and now the wretched hotels are booked up..."
I began to see light. "Mum said you'd had a little tiff"you have made up, haven't you?"
"Yes!" She gave a little laugh, but her voice was still wobbly."It's just me being daft, as usual"I knew I should never have watched the movie "Weddings from Hell..."
More megawatts of light. A "real life" reconstruction thing, this had been screened a week or so ago; we'd caught the last half after the news. After a minute Aliix had said, "Typical commercial pandering to brain-dead family-romance drama"don'tcha just love it?"
Two minutes later, as some Neanderthal groom had chickened out at the last minute, she'd said, "God, I hope Preeti's not watching this," and I'd said, "God, so do I." But we'd been laughing. Half laughing, anyway.
I wasn't laughing now; I was back in maximum-exasperation mode. "For God's sake, don't tell me you've worked yourself into a thing about Manav not turning up?"
A moment's defensive silence was answer enough.
"You had a tiff" I went on. "T-I-F-F. People do, Preeti, so for God's sake get a grip. I bet you've been watching that wretched film again, haven't you? On top of Weddings from Hell'?"
"No! Well, not lately..."
Not that it would have made any difference; she'd watched the movie Four Weddings' so often, it must have worn a smooth groove in her brain ."Preeti, you are not poor old Duckface. Manav is not going to do a Hugh Grant and chicken out at the altar. There isn't even going to be an altar. Though quite frankly, if you turn your nose up at five-star honeymoons I wouldn't blame him if he did slope off to the pub, instead!"
"Will you please stop having a go at me? I can do without it! And I wasn't thinking any such thing, so just shut up, will you?"
Her tone, angry and tearful together, gave me a jolt, but also told me I was spot on and she felt too daft to admit it. So I said, "Well, I'm sorry, but you can't blame me for thinking it. I've had a pig of a day and I've got my own problems. Real ones." Stifling a fleeting urge to confess, I added lightly, "Like cellulite. And bloody great Visa bills."
For a moment there hung a silence so dead I thought she'd hung up in a huff. Just as I was about to reciprocate she said, "If you're broke, please don't spend too much on a present"I'll feel awful."
Her anxious tone"miles removed from moments before"made me feel awful, as my Visa statements were no more horrific than usual. "I'm sorry"I didn't mean to have a go at you. I'm just jealous"I'd give anything to be off to exotic sunsets and sex siestas. Not to mention long exotic drinks, with exotic wigglies plopping into them from the shady Umbongo tree."
She gave a wan little laugh. "I know I shouldn't moan, but Mum's so paranoid about something going wrong she's making me a nervous wreck, too. I've been having visions of tripping over my dress and Dad making embarrassing speeches. After a few drinks he's bound to tell that bath story that makes me cringe."
I wouldn't quite put it past him. "Tell him you'll kill him. I'll tell him. I'll kill him, if you like."
She gave another wan little laugh. "While you're at it, tell Mum you'll kill her, too, if she doesn't stop wittering me to death."
I put on my best soothing tone. "Try to be patient"it's only because she's so desperate for everything to be absolutely perfect."
"Do you think I don't know that? The food, the weather, even you and Varun"you'll never believe what Shreya said, a couple of days ago."
I nearly had a heart attack here. What if, by some foul and devious jungle telegraph, Shreya had got wind of my deception? "What?"
"She asked whether he was coming and Mum said, 'Yes, I think so,' and shreya gave her one of those smug, knowing looks that get right up Mum's nose, and said, 'Well, we'll see,' and Mum prickled like an irate mother hedgehog"you know how she does"and said, 'Just what do you mean by that?' and Shreya said, 'Well, Anita, the number of times he hasn't turned up, it makes you wonder whether Ananya's made him up.' She pretended it was a joke, of course, but Mum said she'll never know how she didn't brain her with a frozen leg of lamb"they were in the supermarket at the time."
My heartbeat receded. If shreya really had heard anything she'd have told a couple of cronies at the golf club and it would have got back to Mum by now. "That bloody woman" I said (with pretty convincing indignation, I thought).
"Yes, Mum was livid. She went on and on"'How dare she imply that my own daughter'd lie to me?'"and all that. She only shut up about it when Emmerdale came on. Oh, bum, now what?" Her voice took on a weary note. "She's calling me"I'd better go..."
Udne Ki Aasha
Kumkum Bhagya
