We free
She didn’t answer his call, it bothered him, he tried thrice, he called Tushar and made small talk, like a silly fool hoping to hear her in the back. She was at the store, cleaning up, with her mother in tow.
Packed food for the night as usual planned to work through the night restoring the place to its regular open hours glory, all the construction dust being wiped off one swoosh at a time
“Subah kar lena, rahogi na do din”
“Nahi Ma if I am opening it AM I want it all clean tonight”
“Tushar is not letting me stay”
“To theek hai na lets eat main aapko chhod doongi”
“Nahi beta… construction waale peechhe so rahe hain I cant let you sleep here”
“You are crazy… how will any one know?”
“You will keep the lights on and work through the night, how hard it will be for 4 men to hammer the lock down and open the accordion gates?”
“ma… aisa kuch nahi hoga”
“No I cant”
“OK lets just work for a while”
Tushar texted Nidhi Bhushan, she called him
“Pradyut ka phone aaya”
“Kya hua?”
“He said she is not answering the phone”
“Maaaaaaaaaa can you hand me the soap water bucket”
“Complain ki?”
Maaaaaaaaaaaa” Taaruni called out again from the far corner where the glass book cases were
“Arey nahi, I texted him this morning as to when he will be here, he called about that” Tushar said
“Main abhi baat nahi kar…”
Taaruni approached Nidhi with exasperation
“KIS se baat kar rahe ho”
She grabbed her Mum’s phone
“Usko kehna phone karegi usko”
“What the heck!”
“Dude. TUUU?”
“Kisko karoon?”
“Pradyut ko kar”
“Is he begging for my attention through you?”
“Why do you always think this way”
“Listen to me Bhai, he started tearing up Zenith yaha pe, not a word CRICKETS!!! Now he wants to talk?”
“Shhhhh… shor kyon macha rahi hai?”
“Nahi macha rahi main shor” Taaruni calmed herself down
“Just call him… you don’t have to mix his biz practices with just returninga call”
“Sure, I will” she sighed with no intention of explaining anything “BTW tell me why is not hurting you or Ma at all?”
“What?”
“The fact that he tore up the entire East side?”
“You know how everything has been since Papa left us” he choked up
“For you not thinking about it is a way of healing, for me fixing and correcting everything and protecting this for Ma, keeping it intact helps”
“?”
“I know you didn’t ask me how much it bothers me but………… u know…. or why it bothers me… par maine aapko keh diya”
“Tension mat le, Harkeerat Uncle hain na”
“You know he hasn’t even opened the shop for 14 days now… board exams March mein hai, based on Sales data I looked at Feb is one of the busiest months”
Nidhi looked at her in teary eyed admiration
“Main ruk jaati hoon raat ko”
“Bilqul nahi” Taaruni hung up on Tushar
“Akele nahi rehne doongi”
But Nidhi was dropped back home and Taaruni returned to the store
She spent until 2 AM cleaning, listening to old Hindi songs on radio, the construction workers sleeping on site, taking a beedi break tried to peer through the steel gates, mumbled to themselves and left
She opened the store nice and early, business was busy despite the adjacent noise and chaos
By 11 AM Pradyut discovered she had spent the night alone in the store
The workers informed their morning shift supervisor, who alerted the site manager and it went all the way up to his desk
He was absolutely furious
He called Tushar immediately
“Was she at the store?”
“Sunti nahi”
“Alone?”
“She does that a lot after Papa’s passing” he sighed heavily expressing grief
“Why was she alone?”
“What do you mean man? Your company tore up the place, she is cleaning it up” Tushar was pissed
“Excuse me…”
“Don’t get me wrong… you promised you will leave the building intact and then proceed to break it up”
Pradyut was speechless for a second
“It has nothing to do with why she spent the night alone”
“Umm… baad mein baat karte hain yaar” Tushar hung up
Midway through the day she picked up his call attending to a customer
“Taara, its me Pradyut” he growled when she answered the phone like she was taking a business call
“Umm.. oh? Hi!” “I am ringing up a customer right now”
“I can wait” he promised
Her heart somersaulted all around her insides…
“Umm.. Nahi who Rs.40, each hai, yeh… Rs. 75” she rotated the jar to show
She was now carrying pencil bents in various shapes, cool erasers and double sided pens in jars all over her cash register desk, like book shops in US did
“Teeno doon?” she checked
Rang up and sent her customers off
Positioned her airpods, correctly and sighed “Bolo”
“You were alone at the store?”
“Yes I was” she said quietly
“It was not safe”
“I know this place, Ive spent many nights here in the last 4 months”
“But not right now…”
“So you think your crew is full of molesters?”
“Are you trying to be clever?”
“Nope”
“Its not safe” he barked firmly
“thanks for your concern, all doors were locked”
“No I don’t have those, shaayad end of Feb mil jaayega, mere paas lekin, last year waala blues and grays hai” she spoke to the customer as she stepped away from the register
“Don’t do it tonight”
“I will be safe” she said instead
“Thanks” he nodded
Click…
Tushar ridden by guilt and afraid Taaruni was endangering herself spent the night with her
They stayed up almost all night, talking about childhood memories, and tried to pinpoint when Gaurav started to be different
They tried to call him
But he let it go to vm
“At some point the store will have to move out of here, that’s the only way we can be free” Taaruni sighed leaning on the back wall, stretching her legs, as she wrapped the blanket around her feet
The mere thought of Pradyut made her weak in the knees, there was a giant energy source around him she felt, like a crackle of electricity, there was always an unsettling churn in her belly when she encountered him or his thoughts. The visual duel they engaged in before he bend down to kiss her always exuded an aura of indefinable possessiveness…
Tushar wondered who the “we” was
Taaruni’s we was her and the store
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