‘Don’t remind me. I’m already in enough trouble.’ She frowned and said reluctantly, ‘I have another favor to ask.’
‘If the rewards will be like the last one, I have no objection,’ he said, tongue firmly in the cheek.
He earned a glare. ‘If it wasn’t for that stupid kiss, I wouldn’t be in this trouble. You have a nerve saying that!’
Pausing under the coolness of the shade of a tree, he regarded her. ‘What trouble?’
‘My mother!’
Her sigh seemed to indicate a level of frustration beyond words. The next moment she’d realized what she’d expressed unwittingly. ‘Oh God, I don’t believe I disparaged my Mom in front of you.’
‘I won’t tell her, so you can relax.’
A smile lurked on his lips, but his keen eyes surveyed her troubled face. ‘Does that matter so much to you?’
‘It’s not that she’d know...it’s just that...’ She tailed off.
She considered him. Already he was in her personal space so much more than she’d bargained for. She should be careful what she gave away to him because any confidences were bound to move them more into the personal zone. Instinctively, she wanted to avoid that. Her own experience of men didn’t encourage her to trust them. While Guy was, she had to admit, a wonderful employer, would he make as wonderful a...? A what? She wasn’t going anywhere answering that. She couldn’t deny that he offered a chance for growth to every staff member of his. She’d never felt at so much ease in her previous job. That company had been a big film production company and she’d been assistant manager but there were too many restrictions and impositions. One had to be answerable for decisions all the time. Whereas at GP, the environment was totally different. Guy gave her space and respected her decisions. He listened more than spoke in the business matters. Yet everyone felt his hand at the helm, steering them on course with their brand. Although they diversified, the brand was there. The serials they produced caused the audience to think. Contrary to the claims of certain big houses who fed on churning out the same sort of family dramas, declaring that people didn’t want intelligent and unorthodox material, GP had produced its flagship serials based on these very traits and struck a chord in the people’s hearts.
Would he, as a man, be as accommodating and encouraging as he was as an employer? He came from the backdrop of centuries of tradition. People said he would marry – if ever – to please his family...
What was she thinking? She shook herself out of her reverie. Guy’s brows lifted questioningly.
‘What? Regretting you spoke spontaneously? You were unwary enough to show a side of you I wasn’t supposed to see. Don’t you think we’re a bit past that?’
She didn’t look convinced.
‘Well, what about your Mom? Is she asking you to bring me home?’
‘How did you guess?’ Her eyes opened wide.
‘No, really? She is? I don’t know if I’m up to that.’
‘Why not? You should have thought of that before!’ Arms akimbo, she confronted him. ‘My mother…God knows what she thinks of me for that bit of PDS!’
‘PDS?’
‘Public display of stupidity!’
He groaned. ‘I should have seen that coming. If I meet your Mom, I think it’s only fair you should pay back some of the favors.’
She waved away a bee buzzing desultorily around her head and glanced suspiciously at him.
‘Pretend to be my fiancée for a few weeks?’ he tossed at her.
Her jaw dropped. ‘What’s this about?’
He waved away the bee who turned away to find the wild flowers around the straggling trees. Instead of answering, he took her to the car, which he started but only to switch on the AC. A welcome blast of coolness fanned her.
‘To put it as shortly as possible. My grandfather isn’t as with-it as your mom. He would never understand PDF.’
‘PDF?’
‘Public display of flirting,’ he smirked.
‘Not that original,’ she scoffed. ‘How did your grandpa come into the picture?’
‘I don’t know. He heard it from some source. I had to say I was engaged. Don’t worry. It won’t be forever. I and my Grandpa don’t get along very well. Not since my twentieth year. We’ll be fighting after some matter or another before long. He’ll probably sympathize with you if you fling the ring in my face.’
‘I don’t know...’ She chewed on her lip. ‘Engagement sounds serious stuff.’
‘Well, we can tell your mother the same story too. She’ll be happy to have such a charming prospective son-in-law.’ He grinned unabashedly.
Eyes narrowed, Lyna glanced at his profile. Attractive or not, he was the devil incarnate.
‘You knew you needed this, didn’t you? All that pretending that you would magnanimously step to my mother’s house for her inspection! Why didn’t you say straight up you wanted me to do you a favor?’
‘Business tactics, my dear. It never does to open your hand at the first show.’ He put the car into gear and eased it out of the makeshift parking lot.
Reluctantly, she decided it was a good one. She must ask their scriptwriter to put that in their next week’s episode.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Her mother lived in the small house in Borivali where she had lived when she first married Lyna’s father. Lyna didn’t understand her love of the place, from which she refused to move, even though Lyna often asked her to live nearer to Llwellpore so she could visit her more often. After her divorce, Vinita had chosen to live in the house which had been rented out when Matthew and she moved to a posher area in Central Mumbai. Now the renters were gone and Vinita lived, accompanied by an old but active aunt who at the moment had gone on a spiritual excursion to Shirdi.
‘So, what do we need?’ she was saying. ‘We have baby tomatoes, pineapple, cucumber all ready for the mixing for the salad…mmm…let me see, I’ll just chop some coriander…it will add freshness.’ Lips pursued, Vinita hurried over to the fridge to get some leaves of the herb.
Lyna glanced fondly and with some concern at the small figure. Age had added some rotundity to her that, with her lack of inches, gave her a hovering, slightly comical presence. She wore saris always, perhaps to disguise the fact. Lyna hadn’t taken after her in height. Her mother’s stature however had the advantage that she appeared younger than she was. Lyna put out a hand to offer help but Vinita hurried to do the task herself. Lyna glanced at the array spread out at the long counter, dishes after dishes jostling each other while spicy aromas filled the air. ‘Mom, you could have ordered from outside. There was no need to cook all these by yourself.’
‘Nothing is too much for my lovely daughter,’ she disclaimed happily. Impulsively, she hugged her. Lyna hugged her back.
‘Why, you’re crying!’ She discovered the moisture Vinita attempted to brush off with a corner of her sari’s hanging pallu.
‘Because you’ll be going away. How can I not think of that?’
‘But I’m not going away anywhere.’
‘When daughters get married, they become someone else’s,’ her mother said with the firmness of ingrained beliefs. ‘You’ll have your own home, your own family. That’s the way it should be. Be loyal to him. You’ll belong to him till your dying breath. That’s what our scriptures say.’
‘Oh Mom, please! You know, I don’t like you talking that way.’
‘But it is so. I’m sorry it didn’t work out with that other man. But I pray to God, this will endure.’
She felt an uncomfortable prick of conscience to deceive her own mother. But she knew she would never understand the truth. ‘It’s just an engagement, Mom.’ Her mother began to look scandalized, so she said quickly, ‘Well, do me this favor. Don’t talk like this…or even about Papa…in front of Guy.’
She folded her lips and became quiet. Lyna glanced at her, but decided not to disturb her further by pressing on the matter.
She was to regret she hadn’t. Fifteen minutes later, there
was the sound of a car being parked hurriedly in the gravel outside, followed by the banging of the car door. She looked up from setting out the dinner plates. There was only one man on the earth who shut doors that forcefully.
She turned her accusing gaze towards her mother. She was wiping her hands on her apron and avoided her eye, saying with an insouciant air, ‘Oh, it looks like we have an arrival, don’t we?’
‘You invited him?’ Her disgust, despair and wretchedness was all in the phrase, but her mother was busy glancing at the mirror set in a cutlery armoire and patting her hair.
‘He’s your father, dear. He has a right to know you’re taking such a big step in life. And besides, he has to meet…Jashith, isn’t it…what a difficult name...I mean, of course good to have the nuance…well, he has to meet him sometime, so why not now?’
Lyna shook her head slowly. ‘Are you sure that was why you invited him?’ She was angry enough to put into words what she otherwise might have left unuttered. But her mother studiously ignored her, only admonishing as she passed her, ‘Stay cool now, Lynie.’
No amount of schooling her features to remain unrevealing could make the inner turmoil subside. Her father always triggered a reaction in her. His presence upset her. After her parents’ divorce, she hadn’t talked much to him. All those childhood promises, never delivered, had turned her sour. ‘Yes, I’ll bring you a new doll, a princess with a shiny dress.’ She had waited for that doll then woken up at midnight to hear raised voices, her mother’s shocked tones, her unexpected outbursts. Initially, she’d blamed her mother for being so rude to him. It was only when the next morning he said he had brought her a new doll, but her mother had thrown it away, that she realized he was lying, a blunt and shameless lie to save his face and depict her mother as a hysterical and illogical person.
She’d grown up and soon realized the cause of those fights. She could never forgive him once she knew.
And now her mother had decided to call him to meet his prospective son in law, forgetting all that had happened. It made her hack the pineapple pieces into bits and then push away the plate in disgust. She wiped her hands and went to join her mother.
She forgot her resentment witnessing the scene that met her disbelieving gaze. Despite her antipathy that her mother could give more importance to the man who’d ill-treated her than the daughter who had loved her all her life, she couldn’t prevent a welling of pity when her mother opened the door to the tall man, wreathed in smiles, and then realized that he had brought her nemesis. Her face fell ludicrously and she forgot manners enough to stand staring at the present Mrs. Perry, in high heels and a gown that made it clear that she had a youthful figure – her well made-up face and bright lips enhancing the fact that not only was she younger than Vinita, but also more well preserved.
‘You!’ Vinita made bad worse by staring at Tasha.
‘Well, Vinita, I thought I ought to bring Tasha. She has a right to meet the newcomer in the family as much as any of us. Oh Lyna...I never thought you had it in you to set the town by its ears, but looks like that’s what you’ve done.’
Lyna gritted her teeth. Wasn’t it just like Matthew – she had stopped thinking of him as ‘Papa’ ages ago – to notice her expected social success rather than extend best wishes or concern if his child was happy.
She had few illusions about her father. She managed to answer him tolerably and even submitted to being hugged by Tasha.
‘You look very much in the bloom, my dear. Do let me know what you’re doing for a formal function. I’ll place my list of caterers and dress designers at your disposal. Will put you in touch with the best of them, my dear.’
Tasha wasn’t spiteful or down putting openly, but she managed to convey the impression that no one quite knew how to behave well socially or had more acclaim in the society or as much social outreach and grace as her.
Again, Lyna murmured a suitable response and subsided.
Her mother didn’t look like she was going to offer them anything and Lyna hovered for a moment, recollecting what was in the fridge. Tasha, invited to sit in the sitting room, glanced around, her dark, overtly thick lashed eyes flicking over the slim, old fashioned sofas and bamboo chairs with cushions patterned with pictures of ornately dressed up elephants.
‘You keep this place so charmingly conservative…quite homely.’ Just like you, her gaze seemed to imply as it came to rest on Vinita.
She flushed and righted her sari self-consciously. Lyna made an instinctive gesture, stepping forward as though in her defense. At that moment, the tension was thankfully broken by the muted roar of Guy’s sedan drawing up outside. Lyna had arrived earlier in the day to bear her mother company and glancing at the clock, she saw approvingly that Guy was only the fashionable fifteen minutes late. Her mother must have told her father to be half an hour earlier which accounted for Tasha arriving when she did because she was usually late, preferring to make an entrance on the parties she graced.
Lyna was glad of the excuse to leave the room. Opening the door, for a few seconds she just stared, unable to hide her surprise. Guy wore a formal, well cut dark suit that delineated well-formed shoulders and tapered to his waist. Enveloped by a distinctly spicy and heady fragrance which sneaked over one rather than overpowered, she was entranced and touched both. He even carried a large bouquet. That he should have made a simple dinner into an occasion was a fact she could just absorb as she stood there.
‘It’s fine by me if you want to pose,’ he said and whipped out his cell phone, angling them so the shot caught them cloistered together with the bouquet in between.
‘No, that is…why don’t you come in…thanks…’ Unusually for her, she stuttered and stumbled over the words.
‘Don’t worry, I often have that effect.’ He spread his hands in a grand submissive gesture, as though helplessly acknowledging the fact. Lyna hurriedly snapped out of her confusion. ‘You’re late!’ She grabbed at the first thing that sprang to her mind.
‘Didn’t want to throw you in a tizzy by being punctual. Don’t you feel that only the tiresome guests arrive exactly on time?’ His lips curved, his gaze warm on her. She felt as though he was noticing her appearance – the knee-length violet and cream outfit with the asymmetrical hem, the different way she wore her hair, swathed to one side, even the light jewelry she wore in the form of a silver bracelet and a neck piece. His approval was patent though it lacked his usual flirting overtones as he said, ‘You battled needlessly against wearing a dress. Suits you quite well.’
For an instant, she forgot the tension riding the next room, then she whirled quickly, ostensibly to put the flowers in the water.
Greetings over, and Guy on being asked, having opted to go straight in to dinner, Vinita hurried to get the meal on the table.
Tasha took the seat next to Guy, with Matthew seating himself on his other side. Lyna or Vinita made sure the platters were full and everyone served themselves, though Vinita kept passing everything to Guy. Matthew brought up the mention of a few mutual acquaintances and Guy responded appropriately. Tasha said, ‘You did hog the limelight, Guy, romancing our little girl like that. But I told Matthew right away not to worry the moment I knew about you. I said, Jashith Pratap Singh of the Nenthi estate? Be sure he’ll do the right thing by her.’
‘Nenthi? Estate?’ Vinita said blankly. Lyna found her mother directing an inquiring gaze at her, then at Guy.
It was Tasha who responded. ‘Yes. You can’t be blamed for not knowing,’ she said kindly. ‘It’s not household knowledge after all, that Guy is really quite so wealthy. Acres and acres, my dear…’
And that, thought Lyna, was Tasha’s savoir faire, as they said. She would never have said ‘It’s common knowledge,’ and hence put down Vinita. She was finer and subtler than that, making it obvious that she was a little above her touch.
Vinita had really outdone herself. A chilled curd based starter preceded Goan fish curry which jostled fresh peas and mushroom, her special potato-c
orn-cheese kebabs and a flat bread basket along with salads and chutneys. Guy lavished praise on her and she blushed like a school girl and piled up his plate despite his protests.
‘Mom’s a Punjabi.’ Lyna grinned, relaxing as she saw his momentary taken aback look. ‘How would you know it unless she makes you eat four times what you usually do?’
‘She’s joking, a young man like you must eat at least twice that.’ She nodded to his full side bowl which overflowed with curry and the plate she’d heaped with flat bread. ‘A man should have a healthy appetite.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said meekly.
Lyna chuckled to see this uncharacteristic display of compliance. ‘What did I tell you? She’s impossible to escape. When I was studying at Mumbai, her first query over the phone was always, have you eaten?’ She mimicked her tone and Vinita laughed, her first natural reaction since Tasha had arrived.
That lady took a sip of chilled aam panna drink and turned to Guy. ‘I think my aunt was quite a visitor in your home place...you must have heard of her, Guru Ma Prita. She became a sage after renouncing the world at the age of fifteen. Such a tender age to give up all the worldly comforts.’
‘Guru Ma Prita is your aunt?’ Before Guy could say anything, Vinita had seized on Tasha’s mention. ‘To think I –,’ Lyna caught her eye and she hastily turned it to, ‘I usually go to her sermons... Just last week she held a satsung near the Saibaba temple...I didn’t know she was related to you.’ Lyna let out a sigh of relief that she’d handled the information well, but she wondered how anyone could have failed to grasp that from now on Vinita would rather seek spiritual guidance from the devil himself than Guru Ma Prita.
Prompted by Tasha if he recollected the sage, Guy said easily – and for once Lyna was glad of his sense of satire –, ‘I think you must be talking about the time when my grandma was alive, some fifteen or sixteen years ago. I was of that age when one is interested only in what sweets and chocolates the visitor has brought rather than their religious leanings.’
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